Show o t y i Adventurers Adventurers' r ft f I Club th i 1 Pitt l p y JI r 0 i i Ten Tons TOllS o of Chain I f I B By y FLOYD GIBBONS I Famous Headline Hunter H HERE'S HERES ERES ERE'S a detective yarn for you you you-a a smuggling story with all the good points of an time old-time thriller plus the additional good point that every word of or it is true Maybe l some of y you ou boys and girls have bave wondered what really goes on behind the scenes with the customs customs cus cus- customs toms men 1 Well heres here's one of them to give us the low-down low and spin us theT the yarn yarn of an actual happening He is John Lynch of New T York r city a Distinguished Adventurer and a heck of vf a swell yarn spinner John bares barjes right into his yarn without any preliminaries Well he says sas it was back in 1914 I was discharged from the F Fifteenth United SF States S tates- tates ates infantry at China and got a 7 job q with the Chinese maritime l Customs in that port My duties were to search all ships coming and going for smuggled goods and its it's not as pleasant a job as you might think because it entails crawling into all sorts of odd corners and out of the way places during the course of your search Customs Officers Ordered to Search the King Sing There youve you've got the whole picture in a nutshell The picture that is of the average working day But theres there's always liable to be a day that's a aE E little different from the average and its it's just such one that John Lynch is going to tell us about now It It was in 1916 two years after he had entered the customs ser service ice John came to io work one morning and took tool his instructions instructions instructions from the bulletin board Officers Mitchell Galvin and Lynch read a notice on that board will search S. S S. S King Sing before departure It was all in the days day's work and there was nothing in that order that promised any excitement Mitchell and Galvin arrived a few moments later and the three of them began getting together their overalls and Ramps Jumps The King Sing was due to leave in half hah an hour so they had to w work vork rk fast They went out to the ship and John began searching the and crews crew's quarters while Mitchell and Galvin worked amidships and aft John Goes Sleuthing Into Anchor Chain Locker John prowled and poked around the crews crew's quarters but he didn't find anything Then Ihen he began looking for other hiding places in the fore part Ir t t. t I I Ia i a 1 I 11 tt L t t i John Picked Up One of the Boxes to tu Open pen It I I of the ship He spotted a manhole that led down to the anchor chain locker and that struck him as a likely place to hide contraband so he lifted the I cover and crawled down inside The anchor was down and with it the fathoms of heavy anchor I chain so the locker was empty But John noticed something something- that looked suspicious Footprints quite Footprints quite a bunch of them on them on the ficor or of the he locker p Now ow the anchor chain locker isn't such a popular place aboard a ship Its It's dark and stuffy and little frequented except by the anchor chain Theres something doing down here John said to himself and he began poking around in the darkness to see what he could find Shanghaied in the Bottom of the Ship Then Then Then-he he found it In the floor was another manhole leading to the bottom of the ship He opened that and went down In the compartment i below several small wooden boxes John picked one up and started Ho to break it open pen when suddenly he heard the rattle of chain above him I The crew were pulling in the anchor and the chain was pouring into the locker overhead John picked up his Ws lamp and started up the ladder It was no noe e use Already a ton or more of heavy chain was lying on top of the opening He lIe yelled for help until his throat was hoarse but the noisy rattle of chain deadened all other sound The ship got under underway underway underway way and there was John in that stuffy hole facing lacing a journey of five days and nights to Shanghai with no food food no no water water and and doggone doggone dog dog- gone little air At first he nearly went crazy Then as the hours and days dragged ion on he got so he didn't care The foul air drugged him into a sort of a i I stupor Hunger pains gnawed him inside but he knew that wasn't the IJ greatest of his worries The big problem was water John would have given all his savings for just one big long drink of it in those dark hours Five Days in an Opium Smuggling Cache After a while hunger and thirst roused him from his stupor and he t began began to look around the compartment he was in He hoped he might find some some way of getting out but he was disappointed Then idly he turned J his attention to u o the boxes on the floor He broke one open and and it it was full of opium Hi His hunch about those footprints had been right There V WAS AS smuggling going on The opium in those boxes was worth a fortune Five days and five nights Then they reached Shanghai Overhead Overhead Over Over- head he could hear the anchor chain snaking out of the locker Barely able to navigate John climbed the ladder When he came to the second ladder he almost fainted from weakness K and i thirst u- u He e was all in when he tumbled out o on n deck The first mate found him lying there and took him to his room Whets When the customs launch came John told his story of the opium cache and then he was sent ashore to a hospital for a needed much going over And I haven't bavent been in a chain locker alone since then he says Its not so bad when you have company Q Service |